Box Turtle Bulletin

This the very first step in the fight against bigotry. When people start showing that they are embarrassed by their own words, we are making progress.

Do I think that anything has changed in their hearts? NO.

But first it has to become socially unacceptable to be racist, anti-semetic, homophobic, etc. Only after that does real progress begin to be made. Perhaps some more protests in front of their church would be helpful.

queerunity

thanks for sharing this, its nice to know people are checking up on these things and observing the habits of our anti-gay foes.

Richard W. Fitch

Let’s not be too easy with this. Just because it no longer appears in the FAQ does NOT mean that it is no longer a de facto policy of Saddleback and Mr. Warren.

Curtis

Hello,

Would you consider as an enemy or anti-gay activist anyone who in their honest conscious seeing something wrong of gay parents adopting children?
Humans are entitled to recognize bad vices in our society without the fear of unfair attacks and criticism. Do you feel so?
Why do we get the feeling that homosexuals count as friends those who wholly support their agenda without troubling questions? Yet they are ready defend themselves against likely innocent people who wish to voice their concerns.
I am certain you may not approve what was written on my blog recently about the gay lifestyle. But like others I reserve the right to alert others if there is a dangerous scent of poison gas before they are harmed by it.
I can understand how much gay advocates wish to harm themselves for their sexual gratification. But should others suffer such as young children to impress approval for your life choice? We see problems many gay individuals wish to ignore. And they consent others to join in with them toward their undoing. How could this ever be fair?

An Observant Human

Patrick

“Humans are entitled to recognize bad vices in our society without the fear of unfair attacks and criticism.”

“Unfair” being the key word here Curtis.

David C.

Curtis:

Q: Would you consider as an enemy or anti-gay activist anyone who in their honest conscious seeing something wrong of gay parents adopting children?

A: Yes, were those parents otherwise qualified to adopt a child and provide for his or her care. It is a product of ignorance to believe that gay parents are not suitable for raising children.

Q: Humans are entitled to recognize bad vices in our society without the fear of unfair attacks and criticism. Do you feel so?

A: Yes, if by “vice” you mean things like substance abuse, alcoholism, and irresponsible gambling. And if by asking this question you intend to imply that gay people are engaging in “vice” by being homosexual, you are again under a false impression growing out of ignorance.

Q: Why do we get the feeling that homosexuals count as friends those who wholly support their agenda without troubling questions? Yet they are ready defend themselves against likely innocent people who wish to voice their concerns.

A: Commentators in this forum allow expression of dissenting opinions and as a rule respect those opinions that are considered. If you mean by “troubling questions” that homosexuals are not content to accept that they are somehow “broken” or are “abominable” for some reason, it is unreasonable to expect that law-abiding citizens of the United States in 2008 should have to defend themselves against such unfair and unfounded classifications.

I am certain you may not approve what was written on my blog recently about the gay lifestyle. But like others I reserve the right to alert others if there is a dangerous scent of poison gas before they are harmed by it.

I’d be willing to bet that you know absolutely nothing about being a homosexual, because if you did, you would not use the phrase “homosexual lifestyle” which is a fabrication of right-wing evangelical ideologues that also know nothing about being homosexual. Even if you were the canary in the cole-mine, the dangerous gas is the one you are emitting when you imply that homosexuals are poisonous.

I can understand how much gay advocates wish to harm themselves for their sexual gratification. But should others suffer such as young children to impress approval for your life choice? We see problems many gay individuals wish to ignore. And they consent others to join in with them toward their undoing. How could this ever be fair?

You project your pictures of unhappiness and isolation onto a group of people you know nothing about with such remarks. Far more children suffer at the hands of unfit straight parents than have or ever will at those of gay parents. let me remind you that very nearly all children that are wards of any state you may choose in the US came from failed heterosexual relationships.

How can you, no how dare you presume to know that a child is better off in a system without a permanent family unit to nurture them and that gay parents are less loving, caring, and responsible than what the state can provide? There are plenty of extremely loving gay parents that are raising heterosexual and gay children and wish only that they lead happy and healthy lives. Perhaps if some of the self-righteous frauds condemning gay parenting would themselves adopt children this whole discussion would moot.

Rick

My gayness is nothing like a poisonous gas, Curtis. Your rhetoric, however…

“I can understand how much gay advocates wish to harm themselves for their sexual gratification.”

I don’t have sex with my husband to harm myself. I really have no idea what you’re talking about. This is truly an incoherent supposition.

I have gay sex because it’s delightful; it is a profoundly joyful expression of the desire and love I feel for my husband. When I make love with my husband, I’m using the body I’ve had all my life to share this delight with him (in his body). For us, nothing could be more natural.

How is this private delight dangerous to you or any children anywhere? OK, you don’t like gay sex, it makes you queasy. So don’t have it.

If you believe the mere existence of gays is what leads children to grow up gay you are, frankly, deluded. Trust me: I was raised in a conservative Christian home and schooled in a private Christian academy. Like you, those folks did everything in their power to keep the world (including gays) away from children like me.

Guess what? I was already gay. I was born that way. All they succeeded in doing was inculcating terror and fear and shame in me.

What you’re attempting to do right now, Curtis, is very similar. You claim to wish to protect children from the ‘noxious gas of homosexuality,’ but what you really mean, I think, is that you intend to prevent certain children, those who are already gay, from maturing into adults who will delight in their bodies in ways which you do not approve.

I am confident you will fail.

Emproph

http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRI_homokids.html

Curtis, I read your article, and I want to thank you so much for that link to that article on the difficulties of children with homosexual parents:

I was so shocked by the findings of Dr. Paul Cameron and the Family Research Institute, that I immediately Googled his name to find out more, and I stumbled upon the most interesting article at a website called BoxTurtleBulletin.com.

Itâ€™s called Paul Cameronâ€™s World, and it was even MORE shocking than the article on homosexual parenting!

Curtis

Rick, David C., Patrick & Others-Hello-Tell me is there a censorship within the gay community and on this site here? Are people allow here reading our comments to know where my blog site is? I had allowed David C. comments posted on my blog site which has a link to this site. Should not the kindness be returned if my blog site is not attacking your community. But it is my admittance voicing again a social concern not in agreement of your viewpoints. Why not let the visitors come to their own truthful conclusions and allow a link to my blog site, Curtis’ Expectations?

Patrick

Curtis, anyone can click on your name in the header and be taken to your blog. Please dispense with your persecution complex.

But, anyone who uses the Family Research Institute as “evidence” against gays as if it were true shouldn’t be speaking to much about truth – they obviously don’t care about the concept.

Timothy Kincaid

Curtis,

I left your comments but I removed your efforts to redirect the readers to your site.

I don’t know about censorship elsewhere, but the purpose of Box Turtle Bulletin isn’t to promote your site. If you wish to have conversation, you may do so here. But we do not encourage offsite debates. If you have anything to say, do so where others can read and dispute your claims.

If I had found on your site some content that was original or substantive in nature, I’d have provided a link of my own, accompanied with commentary. I didn’t.

Incidentally, it has nothing to do with the direction of your opinions. I would do the same if I felt that a pro-gay commenter was trying to redirect traffic.

Priya Lynn

http://www.queerty.com/saddleback-church-site-not-taking-down-gay-condemnations-after-all-20081223/

It turns out that Saddleback is NOT taking down their anti-gay statement after all – they are merely converting it to audio:

Curtis

Timothy, David,

Thank you for your kind response and explanation. Pardon me for still some ways I am in the stone age with computer usage.
Please bear in mind many of my friends and I do not support bias attacks against your group. We do not clap our hands or do high fives when hearing of any crimes against your community.
Even if we do find offensive your practices. We do not use religion or politics or social issues as a front for harassing individuals and groups. There are vital reasons we do not do such things or endorse them.
Although I am not supportive of the gay community. It is my wish each individual enjoy the best of health and happiness from the finest possible resources these may come.
Humane Regards,
mr cjinspector

Curtis

[This comment has been deleted due to violations to our comments policy –Jim Burroway]

Priya Lynn

Curtis if you truly want gay people to have better lives then stop promoting these lies and hatred against them and stop trying to ruin their loving relationships. I’ve had relationships with women and now a man and the idea that I should have forgone either is ignorant and preposterous. Under no circumstances should any gay person deny themselves a same sex relationship just to make you happy. That wouldn’t be a better future, it’d be a much worse one. To suggest that gay people can “switch back” is to deny the fact that most gays were always gay just as I’ve been always bisexual. The best future involves being with the one you love most and ignoring the hate of people like you who’d try to interfere in those loving relationships.

Stop wasting your live spreading hate against gays and do something worthwhile with your time like helping the poor.

Jason D

“Even if we do find offensive your practices.”

What practices would those be? Looking for gainful employment based on our skills and workmanship? Finding a partner? Raising a family? Because these are all practices that all people do regardless of sexuality.

If you are referring to specific bedroom activites — they are none of your business, and certainly not for you to judge or comment on, unless you are inviting us to grade you on what you do in private?

And if you seriously want gay people to take anything you say seriously, you will do the following.

Stop using falsehoods like “the gay lifestyle”, there is no such thing. Our symbol is the rainbow because we come from all walks of life. If you talk to a gay person in Seattle and a gay person in Miami — you will find they live very different lifestyles, the least of which involves their love life. Even two gay men from Chicago will lead very different lifestyles. For example, my best friend, also a gay man, lived in an expensive condo downtown, drove to work every day in a convertible, and came home to a tall husband and a dog, they drink, they gamble sometimes, and travel abroad. I, on the other hand, live in an apartment just outside the city, am currently looking for a job, live with a cat, don’t travel, don’t drive, don’t drink, and neither does my partner. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in the differences in our lifestyles.
You wear ignorance on your sleeve by repeating the dogma of a “gay lifestyle” because for every gay person in the world there is a different way to live.

Stop using the falsehood of conversion. For the “thousands” claimed to have been “changed”, there are never more than 1-2 hundred to be found when it’s time to do follow ups. Even the **best** data on the subject, the Jones and Yarhouse study admits that very few people are successful, have a very “complicated” version of heterosexuality, and that NONE of the success stories have every stopped having desires for the same sex. Ex gay industry lies and misinformation is covered, at length, on BTB, as well as other sites like Ex-Gay Watch. Simply put, the only change that happens is that gay people stop referring to themselves as gay and start denying who they are. The only change is in how they view themselves, the desires don’t go away, they are merely ignored, supressed, coped-with, no one “switches”. How many more Ted Haggards have to be caught with gay prostitutes before people stop these lies and misinformation?
If change was possible, if thousands had been helped, it would be quite easy to show this scientifically, and to date – no one has proven this with any solid science, just a lot of anecdotes, sketchy methodology, and playing semantical switcheroo.

William

Curtis,
Iâ€™ve taken a quick dekko at your blog. I have neither the desire nor the time to write an essay in reply; others may do that if they wish. Iâ€™d just like to point out a few things with regard to what you call the â€œhomosexual lifestyleâ€, by which you appear to mean particular homosexual acts, and the potential health dangers associated with them. (You may as well ignore Cameronâ€™s fraudulent research, because itâ€™s not worth the paper itâ€™s printed on.)

1. There is nothing that any homosexual couple can do with each other that canâ€™t also be done by a heterosexual couple.

2. There is nothing that any homosexual couple do with each other that isnâ€™t also done by some heterosexual couples.

3. Therefore any potential health risks associated with these sexual acts apply whether they are engaged in by a homosexual or a heterosexual couple.

4. Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is primarily about attraction to persons rather than to particular sexual acts. This being so, warnings about any potential risks associated with those acts â€“ whether valid or not, and whether taken to heart or not â€“ will not make an iota of difference to anyoneâ€™s sexual orientation. There was a time in history when heterosexual intercourse was associated with enormous risks of dying in childbirth for working-class and even middle-class women (quite apart from STDs, for which there was no reliable cure). A woman who signed the parish marriage register this year stood a very good chance of appearing in the parish burial register next year. Did that deter women from the â€œheterosexual lifestyleâ€? Did it hell as like.

Jim Burroway